The Racist Sexist Homophobic Dipshit pledge drive

John Scalzi is the author of several books, including the Old Man’s War series and Redshirts, published in the States by Tor and the UK by Gollancz. He’s also the president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Fed up of being constantly targeted on his website by one particular individual and his followers, Scalzi decided to take action, pledging US$5 every time “the Racist Sexist Homophobic Dipshit in question posts an entry on his site in which he uses my name (or one of his adorable nicknames for me)”.

A novel enough way to tackle the trolls, for sure, but what happened next was somewhat astonishing: Scalzi’s friends, Twitter followers and readers asked if they could jump in with pledges too. Many of his friends are high-profile authors and industry types – Will Wheaton, the actor who played Wesley Crusher in TV’s Star Trek: The Next Generation, and a writer in his own right, was one of many who promised to match Scalzi’s US$1,000 pledge.

By the early hours of this morning, UK time, the pledges for Scalzi’s chosen charities had grown to US$50,000.

Very good. Just one thing though – let’s not be thinking of this as a great way to raise money for rights organizations. I don’t volunteer to be a target for the purpose. Sorry, but no.

Theodore Beale, known by his pseudonym Vox Day, is a game designer, “musician,” libertarian, Christian apologist, and all-around idiot. He is a regular pundit for WorldNetDaily (which says a lot about the demographic he’s pitching to). Vox Day also has his own website, voxday.net, and a blog, Vox Popoli, on which he attempts to “disprove” atheism, environmentalism, and liberalism through extensive use of poorly-thought out attacks. He also wrote the book The Irrational Atheist: Dissecting the Unholy Trinity of Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens, which pioneered some of the most popular methods of “debating” atheists (mostly just calling them names).

He is a member of Mensa and, according to himself, has an IQ “[o]ver the so-called ‘genius’ threshhold [sic].” This demonstrates at least one of two things: Showcasing how allegedly smart people can make a living saying very stupid things, or that the IQ test is severely overrated as a measure of actual intellectual capacity.

Thanks for that, Rodney. One disadvantage of arriving in the atheist movement post-elevator and mid-TAM uproar is that I only recognize them names of atheist or skeptical racist sexist homophobic dipshits and their enablers.

So I recommend doing good deeds. Start up a local group. Raise money for a charity. Adopt a pet. Plant some trees. Feed some people. Fix something for a neighbor. Paint something. Make something. Read a book to a kid. Every time you see a hate message against a woman online donate 25 cents to Planned Parenthood. I could go on and on. There is always some good to be done. Don’t let pathetic bigots stop you from living the life you want and try to turn the negativity into something good.

That was the post that made me realize I had to do something or go supernova with anger.